How do I turn off the iMessage setting?

Before I downloaded iOS 8 on my iPhone 4s I was able to choose if I wanted to send an imessage or text. Now I am forced to send imessage. I went to settings and disabled imessage and tried to send text. I got error message telling me to enable imessage. Am I doing something wrong. FYI the reason I want to send text instead of imessage is that texts show on my phone bill in detail. Imessage does not , I guess because this goes as data and not text. Any help u can offer wud be greatly appreciated

It's possible that the contact you're trying to send to is not in your address book properly. Make sure that you have an actual phone number listed for them in your contacts, otherwise you will not be able to send a text message.

You also won't be able to send a text message if the person is only using an iPad, since it doesn't have a phone number and can only accept iMessages.

It's possible that the contact you're trying to send to is not in your address book properly. Make sure that you have an actual phone number listed for them in your contacts, otherwise you will not be able to send a text message.

You also won't be able to send a text message if the person is only using an iPad, since it doesn't have a phone number and can only accept iMessages.